Randy Greenwald

Abandoned? Nah.

On October 23, 2012

One day, one of my adopted children asked me, “Daddy, why did my birth-mommy not want me?” I was able to sit that child down and carefully explain to them that indeed their birth mother most certainly DID want them. Their birth mother loved them so much that she gave them life and then took the steps she could to find a good home for them. The fact that the birth mother was not in a place to care for a new child did not equate to not wanting the child. Placing her new child with us was a profound, and for her painful, act of love, not an act of ‘giving up’ the child, or, worse, abandonment.
Steve jobs 1984 macintosh 1
And so it troubles me to hear in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, Isaacson, Jobs’ acquaintances, and Jobs himself refer to his being ‘abandoned’ at birth. In the culture of the day, his birthmother was in a very difficult predicament for which adoption was a compelling and loving choice. To place a child for adoption is not to abandon the child.

Many, apparently, want to attribute some of Jobs’ unique personality traits to his being thus ‘abandoned’. Jobs, while still using the language of abandonment, rejects this logic.

“Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned. I’ve always felt special. My parents made me feel special.”

His parents clearly did a wonderful job of diffusing the potential abandonment angst. Jobs gives them the greatest tribute any adopted child can give to those who parent him. Isaacson writes:

He would later bristle whenever anyone referred to Paul and Clara Jobs as his “adoptive” parents or implied that they were not his “real” parents. “They were my parents 1,000%,” he said.

I hope he was able to tell Paul and Clara that.

1776. 4th Down. 3 Seconds on the Clock. Washington Drops Back to Pass…

By Randy

On October 22, 2012

In Books, Writing

On Saturday morning I had no schedule. The family was away and I was alone. I sat on the couch intending to drink a cup of coffee and read for a bit. I drank a whole pot and read a lot. I read to the end, in fact, of David McCullough’s 1776. If I may indulge a sports analogy, I read like I was experiencing an 80 yard touchdown drive during the final 38 seconds of a football game. Though I knew how the game, I mean book, would end, I read away with tension thick.

This is the fourth of McCullough’s books I’ve read. That it is not his best is irrelevant, and only speaks to the quality of his other work.

McCullough’s intention is to take the reader through the first full year of the American Revolution from the military point of view. Congress in this book plays a minimal role as the focus falls upon George Washington’s desperate attempt to hold together an army of untrained and undisciplined men come together with disparate motivates and conflicting regional loyalties. That the army survived to see 1777 is nothing short of miraculous.

Washington’s failures and blind spots and weaknesses are on display. But also one sees his patience, his political wisdom, and his intuitive leadership skill. Much the same is seen in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s equally good Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Both Washington and Lincoln lead men of varying abilities and loyalties through a time of crisis. There are lessons to be learned here.

Leadership is not the only skill to be learned from these pages, however. I am captivated by the story-telling skill of McCullough, Goodwin, and others I’ve read recently, such as Walter Isaacson and Laura Hillenbrand. It would be worthwhile to return to each book and assess how they accomplish what they do.

Sure, I’d like to lead like Washington or Lincoln; but even more, I’d love to write like McCullough, Goodwin, Isaacson, or Hillenbrand.

A Teacher

By Randy

On October 19, 2012

In Christian Life

A follow-up to my two previous posts. If I find the time, someday, perhaps I will comment.

The bible as a means of grace requires reflection:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1, 2)

The bible as a means of grace requires community:

And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. (Acts 8:27-29)

The bible as a means of grace requires integrity:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1)

But I Don’t Understand What I Read

By Randy

On October 17, 2012

In Christian Life

An earlier post questioned the nearly universal assumption that to be a good and growing and maturing Christian, one needs to be a regular, preferably daily, reader of the bible. Being raised in the tradition that I have, it grates against me to question that. But years of experience as a pastor causes me to wonder if indeed it is true.

I have known people who were absolutely voracious students of the bible whose theological conclusions were wide of anything that could be construed as sound, and whose profession and character were far from godliness. At the same time, I’ve known wise and godly people who were sporadic readers of the bible. My experience is anecdotal, I know, and no match for the pollsters, and yet I wonder if there is not something to it.

There is a diversity in the mix of those who do or who try to read their bibles. Among that diversity, there are those who admit that there is much in the bible they do not understand. As well, there are others who stumble over the same passages, but are afraid to confess it. I can say this because I often read without understanding. I have a seminary degree. My day job requires me to study the bible. And yet, when I’m just reading the bible, there are large sections as opaque to me as they are to others.

There is no joy, and from what I can imagine, no longterm benefit from hours spent reading something that, truth be told, makes no sense to us. The lack of bible reading is no surprise to me.

The ‘fix-it’ answer to this dilemma, of course, would be to ‘teach them how to do it’. There is some sense to that, and maybe that is the answer, depending on how we conceive of the ‘teach them’. Inevitably, bookish people that we are, we will challenge bible non-readers to first read a good book on how to read the bible. Again, not a bad idea, but it does not somehow manage to address the issue.

The issue is not volume or depth of bible reading; the issue is the pathway to the knowledge of God. We understand that the word of God is a means of grace, a pathway to knowing and communing with God. But is reading the primary means by which that word becomes a pathway to God?

Though I may be wrong, bible ‘engagement’ (Stetzer) or ‘intake’ (Whitney) in the bible is nearly always a corporate act. We are to allow the word of God richly to dwell in us “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16) We are to respect our “leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (Hebrews 13:7) Faith, it seems, comes by hearing (Romans 10:17) the word of God, through the gathering of God’s people and through its preaching (Romans 10:14).

Perhaps our evangelical emphasis upon bible reading is itself a reflection of the literate and individualistic culture of American Christianity. Yes, indeed, faith depends upon the word of God revealed, heard, understood, and applied to the heart. I’m just not convinced that the absence of bible reading is the precise thing to be alarmed about.

Again, I am interested to know what you think.

The (Bible Reading) Sky Is Falling

By Randy

On October 15, 2012

In Christian Life

LifeWay Research has recently released an alarming statistic: less than 20% of churchgoers read the bible daily.

I have two problems with this. The first is ‘statistic’ and the second is the sense of ‘alarm’. I have addressed both of these concerns before. We are drawn to the seeming irrefutability of statistics and we seem to be only motivated by the sense of alarm that those stats can raise.

I find that when I am inundated with stats and alarm that I become numb to both. Lacking the tools to evaluate the methodology of the statistic purveyors, I am inclined to mostly ignore them.

But this study raises a more critical question. I really don’t doubt the general concept the study has measured: that few Christians read their bibles on a consistently regular basis. It’s been measured before, but common experience shows it to be true. My question here is not with the reality, but with the conclusion – that this is somehow an alarming thing.

Should we see this not as a measure of a crisis but the identification of a reality, akin to the fact that 99% of people who jump in pools, and 100% of them without scuba gear, get wet? That people do not and have not and may never read their bibles should not alarm us but be accepted as a simple reality. In this case, perhaps the question should not be ‘What can we do about this?’ but rather ‘Why are we surprised or concerned about this?’

Perhaps we should be willing to say that people do not read the bible and that is, generally, an okay thing.

Ed Stetzer of LifeWay, in discussing this study, doesn’t quite seem to know what language to use in addressing his concern. The study addresses ‘bible reading’ but he speaks of ‘bible engagement’. Maybe his term, akin perhaps to Donald Whitney’s ‘bible intake’, is purposely chosen to make room in the spiritual spectrum for the illiterate. Stetzer asks the question, “…if tangible life changes are statistically related to bible engagement in the life of a disciple of Christ, why aren’t more reading and studying the bible?” A reasonable answer might be that reading and studying are not the only ways, and perhaps not the primary way, by which people receive God’s word.

Few, I suppose, would disagree that the goal of the Christian life, and of bible reading, is to know God. And few would disagree that the book through which God has revealed himself is, in fact, important to that goal. But if spiritual growth occurred for fifteen hundred years before the printing press, and if maturity still somehow happens in cultures where literacy is low, and if, in fact, people who read their bibles infrequently still come to know God with depth and devotion, is it not reasonable to ask whether we have put too much emphasis upon the ‘necessity’ of individual, private bible reading? Is it possible that we focus here because bible reading is measurable and knowledge of God is not?

I ask this as a serious question and am interested in genuine responses. Do we put too much emphasis upon the idea of individual, private bible reading?

Hypocrisy and Following

By Randy

On October 5, 2012

In Uncategorized

The ever insightful Garfoose on his own hypocrisy and tendency to judge. Or, shall I say, OUR own hypocrisy…. The whole sets the context, this the conclusion:

I’m saying that generating an opinion, then flinging it into cyberspace in no way qualifies us as competent believers, nor does it justify our lack of action. In the ancient world, you could agree with someone’s teachings on a subject. Doing so, however, did no make you a follower. To be called a follower of a teacher—rabbi, philosopher, priest, etc…—you had to commit your life to the imitation of their teaching. In other words, you actually had to follow it. In the modern world, apparently you just have to agree with a teacher, and know the material well enough to point out how someone else is screwing it up. No wonder Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

R. A. Dickey

By Randy

On October 1, 2012

In Biography, Sports

In the smoldering remains of Major League Baseball’s April dreams, it’s great for those of us whose primary teams will go home in a few days to have some great stories to hang onto and celebrate. This year’s Big Story belongs to R. A. Dickey, the only knuckleball pitcher left in the major leagues. On a team that to-date has won only 73 games, the NY Mets, twenty of those games have been won by 37 year-old Dickey. He leads the national league in both strikeouts and complete games. He is the first knuckleballer to notch 20 wins since Joe Niekro over 30 years ago.

That is the story for baseball fan in me. But by all accounts, Dickey is also a decent human being. A husband, a father, and one who has known enough disappointment and struggle to have gained a sense of perspective on what he has been allowed to do and to accomplish. He does not come across as one so full of his own greatness that the rest of us could not enjoy a cup of coffee or a mug of beer with him. His story, told in his memoir (Wherever I Wind Up), and recounted in this NPR interview is one filled with abuse and resilience and redemption.

Not incidental to Dickey’s take on life is his Christianity. He does not wear it on his sleeve (or in his eye-black), but he wears it as a genuine part of his person and a significant foundation for his life. He does not trumpet his Christian faith but he does not shrink from it. He does not link his success to his Christianity and thus stir theological questions when he fails. His Christianity is who he is and baseball is what God allows him to do in this stage of life. There is a genuine maturity in his faith as it is allowed to be seen.

But it is not always allowed to be seen. In a World Magazine interview with him, he was asked about that.

The subject [of your Christian faith] didn’t come up in your NPR interview.

Dickey: I brought it up. They edited it out. I always look for opportunities to talk about my faith in a way that is congruent with the story or the question that they ask, because it is important to me that people know. Most of the time it will be edited out.

Most of the time it will be edited out.

The truth is, though, that God never gets edited. Dickey’s story, and his faith, will find its way to those who need to know and need to hear, whether that is from the platform of his thrilling success, or in his backyard someday when he is trying to encourage a son or a daughter to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of either failure or success.

We take note of Dickey now because of his success. Baseball fans LOVE the rise of the underdog. I wish him the greatest further success. But we, like him, must build our hope not upon his or our success, but upon the story of another who proclaims and secures God’s love for us. And that story will never be edited out.

—–

If you want more on Dickey and on the knuckleball, try to see the new movie Knuckleball: the Movie. The trailer sounds like a winner!

Appreciating Pastors

By Randy

On September 25, 2012

In Church

The religion editor of the Orlando Sentinel passed on the details from a press release he had received from a local church sponsoring a “Pastor Appreciation 5K Run/Walk”. Included in the release was the predictable content:

“A significant part of the health and strong culture of our community is built on the backs of hundreds of dedicated pastors, who week in and week out guide, nourish, counsel, comfort and challenge as many as 1,000,000 of our citizens. This is a tangible way for us to show that we are grateful,” said Patrick Morley, founder of Man in the Mirror ministries.

Wow. I know this is meant well, but it is a bit over the top. I like what I do, and I think what pastors do is important, but I also think what garbage collectors do is important (and dangerous – see #4!). Should we not have a “Garbage Collectors 5K Run/Walk”?

This run is timed with what has come to be known as ‘Pastor Appreciation Month’. Again, I know this is meant to encourage those engaged in pastoral ministry. I’m sure it arose from good people wanting to find a tangible way to thank those whose ministry has impacted them. But for me, a month in which people send cards or run races to show appreciation has just enough artificiality about it to make it just a bit distasteful.

I thrive on being appreciated. I just read appreciation differently. Assuming there are other pastors out there like me, may I make a few modest suggestions regarding how to appreciate him?

1. Faithful attendance at public worship.

2. Saying ‘yes’ when asked to take on a responsibility that relieves a burden from him.

3. Assuming a responsibility when NOT asked to do so.

4. Holding realistic expectations of his ministry. That is, not expecting him to be Jesus, Paul, Piper, or Spurgeon.

5. Inviting others to attend your church.

6. Praying for him frequently, and letting him know you are doing so.

I’m sure others can suggest other ways by which appreciation can be shown. Coming alongside of the pastor and supporting (with attendance and deeds) the ministry which means so much to his heart is the greatest encouragement.

I don’t disparage cards, and gift cards (especially when they say ‘Starbucks’ on the outside!). But they mean more when they come in, say, February.

And while we are at it, let’s buy a dozen donuts and a card and pass them on to your garbage collector to tell him thanks.

Islamaphobia

By Randy

On September 18, 2012

In Politics

A helpful take on the recent flare up in Muslim relations with America by Brian McClaren.

In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians – and all Americans – in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.

I encourage reading the whole.

In Honor of Those Who Teach. Children.

By Randy

On September 10, 2012

In Uncategorized

Most parents send their children off to school when they are five or six, many earlier when pre-school is an option. We sent our youngest son to his first experience of school when he was eleven years, three-hundred and fifty-five days old. My wife has retired after 24 years of home-schooling.

Needless to say, it has been an adjustment for him, as well as for us. Not only has he (courageously, I might add) faced a barrage of new challenges, many never before imagined, but so have we. We are public school rookies trying to navigate a complex system to help our son’s transition to this new world be as smooth as possible.

In this process we have had several opportunities to intersect with his teachers and other professionals at his middle school. I know there are many complex issues related to education in general and public education in particular. But I also know that while the political, philosophical, and theological winds blow and the multiple degreed people debate how and why and where education best happens, there are teachers in classrooms who care about the children and young people they teach. I’ve known that for a long time, but this experience has put names and faces to that knowledge.

I’ve seen the bumper stickers with the political message “What if schools had all the money they needed and the Air Force had to have a bake sale to buy a bomber?” and ignored them. But I was surprised in our first meeting with our son’s teachers that nearly all of them in listing needs for their classrooms requested Kleenex. I realized then that if my son were to show up in class with a runny nose, these teachers would not use (non-existent) district issued tissues, but those they could beg or, failing that, buy. I understand that many teachers willingly spend hundreds of dollars each year from their own pockets to so stock their classrooms.

In the second week, my wife and I were able to have a meeting with all our son’s teachers to address some common concerns. We thanked them for all they were doing. At the end, we gave them each a cinnamon roll, and then picked up a laundry basket of Kleenex boxes and dumped them onto the conference table. In the midst of the ensuing ‘feeding frenzy’ (I don’t know what other words to use) there were expressions like ‘best parents ever’ spoken around the table.

We are hardly that. But it says something both about the needs of teachers, and their dedication, when one can make their day by giving them boxes of Kleenex. I cannot think of words with which to express my wonder at and appreciation for the good people that God has raised up around my son to guide his success.

My hat is off to all who teach. Who teach not history or English or science, but teach children.